Wednesday, June 17, 2015

They report: "A new shark drone used by Southland lifeguards in California reveal
shocking evidence of the number of sharks swimming near the shoreline at
Seal Beach. It wasn’t something lifeguards there were prepared to see."

Imagine the shock these lifeguards must have felt. Who knew that there were sharks in the water? Where have these guys been lifeguarding all their lives? At a pool?

Actually, when reading the article, you'll find out that the lifeguards are perfectly capable and were not "shocked" by the drone footage. They write: "The Chief Seal Beach Lifeguard, Joe Bailey, tells CBS News Los Angeles This morning, we launched it and 10 minutes later, we knew there were 10 to 12 sharks all in the Surfside [Beach] area"

The article further states: "Bailey loves the shark drone. It’s easy and safe for everyone to see where the creatures are and when to steer clear of them.

“It works great. It flies up about 100 feet, looks down a
wide area, and when we see the shadows, we’ll go down and focus in on
them.”

A juvenile Great White in waist-high water at Surfside was captured
by the drone Monday morning. At the time, there weren’t any swimmers in
the water."

And here is my favorite part of Joe Bailey's statement according to the Inquisitor “If we get bigger sharks or we get sharks that are aggressive, we’re
actually going to close the water. But right now, we have sharks that
are 5- to 6-feet long, non-aggressive, acting like normal sharks,
feeding on bottom fish, doing exactly what we would expect them to do.
That’s why we have it posted just to let people know that they are
there.”

Great response Joe Bailey! No hype, no scaring anyone and promising a reasonable response, should there be any potentially dangerous sharks coming too close to swimmers. I believe that closing a beach for a period of time is the best response to the sighting of a potentially dangerous shark.

Overall a good article, if only they could find a headline that is not in direct conflict with the article. Maybe something like "Lifeguards NOT worried about white sharks swimming off the coast"?

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